[Hbomb0903]

I am kind of tired of hearing bipolar 2 being described as milder. It has literally caused my life to crumble over and over as I've gotten older. I don't see anything mild about the all-encompassing depressions that come with it. They destroy me.

Just a rant.

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[jesusplay]

Bipolar 2 is milder. What makes it mild? You don't ever have true mania.

In closing, bipolar is still bipolar...all forms can do damage.

Bipolar 1 one episode of mania
Bipolar 2 one episode of hypomania

both come with depression.

In fact I am Bipolar I and I've been depressed for almost 2 years straight.

[Hbomb0903]

I know and both suck. Like I said kind of a rant. I've been diagnosed both ways. There is nothing mild about either one, IMO.

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[BipolaRNurse]

I don't think one form or the other is "worse". They're both bad, only real difference is BP 1 has full-blown mania and BP 2's hypomania doesn't quite rise to that level. Some people even say BP 2 is worse because they spend so much time in depression, which can be severe. I don't know because I fall into the BP 1 category, but I have a good friend who is a 2 and his depressions take him to hellish places I hope I never go.

[Victoria'smom]

I think honestly bipolar 1 is considered worse because mania scares others more but to the sufferer its all the same.

[A Red Panda]

I have bp2. I consider it milder than bp1 because I know that I'll never be losing total touch with reality - that's just not something I consider a risk. I know that I won't totally destroy my life in the grips of a mania.

My depressions? Yes, they are hell. They are soul-crushingly hellish sometimes and I almost didn't survive some of them.

But I can hide all of that from others. You can't hide the manias. So I consider what I experience to be more mild than someone with bp1.

[unlived]

Originally Posted by A Red Panda

I have bp2. I consider it milder than bp1 because I know that I'll never be losing total touch with reality - that's just not something I consider a risk. I know that I won't totally destroy my life in the grips of a mania.

My depressions? Yes, they are hell. They are soul-crushingly hellish sometimes and I almost didn't survive some of them.

But I can hide all of that from others. You can't hide the manias. So I consider what I experience to be more mild than someone with bp1.

you can lose touch with reality in depression with psychosis and you can destroy your life with suicide. i would say thats pretty bad and worse than mania and definitely more final and damage greater

[Bolivar83]

hbomb0903: I hear ya'!

Was diagnosed as BP2

I was surprised, as my past was littered with full-blown manias; to whit: blowing my whole paycheck on books about Antarctica, as I was going to move there [mind you, this idea came out of nowhere; I have neither contacts nor qualifications]. Went so far as to call my therapist in excitement. It took him many concerned phone calls to slow me down. Ex 2: losing over 3 days of my life after I was convinced John Lennon visited me (after his death). Apparently, I composed a 20+ page letter over those three days that my mother was charmed to receive; to this day, I do not know what I wrote, it distressed her so. And these are just a couple of chocolates in the assortment box o' crazy.

so, anyway, I here I am, at BP2. It has been a veritable wrecking ball to my life. I hear what you are saying, it feels like the illness is being diminished. But it's really not - it's just a different shade of the mh spectrum, and we're both still on it! Yay!

-Bolivar

[usehername]

Originally Posted by unlived

you can lose touch with reality in depression with psychosis and you can destroy your life with suicide. i would say thats pretty bad and worse than mania and definitely more final and damage greater

Twice during a full blown mania I played Russian roulette... Thought I was god and couldn't die. One time I thought I could fly. You can kill yourself in mania too.

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[usehername]

However, I would NEVER even think that 2 would be "milder" BP is BP, regardless of the flavor. It's all hell! Don't you love it?? Lol

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[A Red Panda]

I always thought that psychosis (even if in a depressive state) would lead to a diagnosis of bipolar 1.

Yes, suicide is obviously a major risk for all of us - but everyone with bp1 or bp2 can be loaded up with major depressions. So I wouldn't consider the depressed suicide risk to be a distinguishing factor.

Looking then at the more distinctive difference - mania vs hypomania... mania is more damaging. That's not saying that hypomania can't be damaging, it sure can! But Mania definitely has a larger chance of royally messing up someone's life. Hence why I consider bp2 to be more "mild".

Do I like the term mild? No, but it does sound nicer than "less severe" to me, so I opt to use it when I am describing myself and my experience. Personally, I find myself having to completely describe what bipolar is and the differences between what people stereotypically think, vs what I experience. Going "it's more mild than that" is an easy way for me to describe it. ((Then again - as it's a spectrum, I can also say that my episodes are more mild than what most people tend to report, even for bp2. My hypomania's are fairly tame, and over the past decade I've developed some pretty good coping/management skills for my depressions... lucky me!))

[wildflowerchild25]

I think it's all hell and it's invalidating to say one is worse than another. I'm not sure which I have. The bp1 dx came about because of a mixed episode, but then on here I've learned that there are many bp2 people who also have mixed episodes. I don't consider myself to have full blown manias but I do have psychosis both in hypomania and depression. So I don't know where that puts me. According to the doctors that puts me at bp1 and I guess I should listen to them because I'm always so desperate to minimize my condition.

But anyway I understand what you mean hbomb they all suck, 1, 2, nos, none of them are fun. Whether one is milder or not doesn't make it less hard on the sufferer.

[pawn78]

The only difference between bipolar 1&2 is an arbitrary definition, based on how severe the mania episodes are.

That's it. It's just a clinical definition, even within those basic categories of 1&2, there are a wide variety of symptoms and cycles.
I don't take them too seriously, the categories. I just know that other type 1 people like me, have gone to the extreme point of textbook mania..... It's pretty scary.

[manymiles]

Folks with Bipolar II are more likely to commit suicide than any other type of bipolar.

Folks with Bipolar I experience mania.

It depends on what things you look at if you are going to say one is milder than the other.

I do not like hearing Bipolar II is milder than Bipolar I. I hear the person diminishing and dismissing the challenges of Bipolar II by saying that one suffers more with Bipolar I. The fact is both are horrible.

[A Red Panda]

*shrugs* If you experience actual mania and not hypomania, then it's bipolar 1 and not 2.... that's the difference between the two. Diagnostic wise and experience wise. They are different.

I have bipolar 2. I do not dismiss nor diminish my challenges which I face. I just recognize that I do not lose touch with reality as I do not have psychosis or actual mania. In that regard, I consider myself lucky and thus consider myself to have a milder experience. I never said that bipolar 2 is less horrible. In my first post I said I consider it more mild because it's easier to hide (and never said it always could be... just that it's easier, because you can recognize that you're off-your-normal).

Just like there are major and minor depressions. A minor depression is more mild than a severe one. Doesn't mean that it doesn't suck monkey balls or that the person who is experiencing the minor one is suffering less... just that it's more mild.

[swheaton]

Suffice to say, they both suck.

[BipolaRNurse]

Originally Posted by swheaton

Suffice to say, they both suck.

On that point, I think we can ALL agree.